


Supporting Cast

by Pumbie



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-05
Updated: 2018-07-05
Packaged: 2019-06-05 18:05:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15176330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pumbie/pseuds/Pumbie
Summary: They've always been supporting actors, their lives a mere subplot to those of their best friends. Why should their love lives be any different?





	Supporting Cast

Their story has never been much more than a sideline, a subplot to the great love story that was Archie and Betty. But that was okay, they were used to being overshadowed by their more exuberant friends. Used to being overlooked, forgotten. It almost doesn’t bother them anymore.

Archie and Betty, with the typical self-centeredness of those assured of their positions as main characters, began to fall loudly and dramatically into love one night at a bar and continued the bumpy process over the course of the next few months. Veronica was there the night they met, as she was Betty’s friend. Jughead was there too, taking the role of Archie’s best friend and wingman.

When Archie and Betty abandoned their friends to make figurative babies on the dance floor, it was only natural that Veronica pulled up a chair beside Jughead and said, “Apparently my friend likes your friend.”

Raising his glass, Jughead responded, “To their lifelong happiness, in the hopes never have to be his wingman again.”

“To never having to listen to her boy drama,” Veronica agreed, clinking glasses and downing her gin and tonic.

Their toasts didn’t come true- not yet anyway. Betty had more boy drama than ever, and Veronica, as always, played the patient friend and talked her through it. Archie still went out at least twice a week and expected Jughead to come along.

While Archie and Betty went and did exciting things and fell further into love and fulfilled their roles as the main characters, Veronica spent her evenings at home with a book and a glass of wine, secretly rejoicing in her freedom, and Jughead wrote for hours in his apartment away from headache-inducing music.

Of course, there were still nights, lots of nights, when Betty said, “Come one V. Come out with me, I really want to go in case Archie shows up, but I don’t want to be alone in case he doesn’t.” And Archie said, “Hey man, let’s go out for a couple of drinks. See, if Betty’s there,” and as usual Veronica and Jughead shrugged and dress up because it was their roles. They’re the best friends, the supporting actors.

On those nights, while Archie and Betty drank and laugh and dance or did something plot related, Veronica and Jughead sat and tried to make intelligent conversation, and somehow over time, they became friends.

They were not the main characters, they were in the background. This kind of stuff never happened to them. So they didn’t do anything about it, they just revelled in the times their friends’ dramatic lives pushed them together. Besides, they could never have any kind of permanence or commitment between them, that would be immediately destroyed if something happened to push Betty and Archie apart. Their lives were dominated by the whims of their better halves.

One night they stuck around after Betty and Archie have made their exits, sipping at their drinks and ecstatic in the fact that they can pretend that they were relevant.

They had a little too much to drink that night, not enough to produce gastrointestinal fireworks or awkward morning afters, but enough to made Veronica’s legs wobbled when she stood up from her chair and Jughead’s laughs were too loud when he offered to walk her home. He meant to leave her at her door, he really did, but when she turned and smiled up at him, he threw caution the wind and kissed her.

It was not a fairytale kiss, nor a Hollywood production. The world didn’t turn upside down, the camera didn’t do an elaborate spin shot. But it was real and it was them, that was all they want. They were only a subplot, after all. It was enough to make it difficult for Veronica to step back and said, “Jug, we can’t.”

Jughead clenched his jaws as he accepted the inevitable, nodded, and walked away.

Veronica didn’t cry herself to sleep that night. She stood under the shower until the water ran cold, hating Betty for dominating her life, hating herself for letting Betty dominated life, hating Jughead for kissing her. The next morning she listened to Betty retelling her and Archie’s night, laughing and “aw”-ing at the right places.

Because that was her role.

When Archie proposed, Veronica felt a prickle of hope but she tampered it down under wedding plans and ugly dresses. No point in jinxing it. Still, as it got closer to the wedding, there was a heat and excitement in the air when she and Jughead were in the same room.

Jughead nearly had a heart attack the day before the wedding when Archie had cold feet about giving up his freedom and started talking about calling it off. Halfway to opening his mouth to tell Archie to snap out of it, he paused. This was the only time he couldn’t tell whether he was trying to be a good friend or just being selfish.

Finally, he shrugged. “I can’t tell you what to do. All I know, if you walk away now, you’re going to regret it.”

This seemed to do the trick, and from here on in, things went off without a hitch.

As Jughead took Veronica’s arm to escort her down the aisle, both of them felt a thrill of anticipation but they both tried to suppress it. There was still a chance for things to go horribly wrong.

“Speak now or forever hold your peace,” and for one terrifying moment, Veronica was positive someone was going to stand up, that the door was going to fly open, that the words “I object!” would soon be ringing through the air.

But nothing happened. Veronica didn’t allow herself a sigh of relief. Neither did Jughead.

They stood apart, reserved, throughout the ceremony, the pictures, the cutting of the cake. Veronica didn’t catch the bouquet, despite Betty’s best effort to throw it in her direction, and Jughead didn’t catch the garter.

Archie and Betty drove away in a shower of flower petals and drunken, suggestive comments.

Veronica was standing alone on the dance floor, a free woman. She was so caught up in the intoxicating sensation of it that she almost didn’t notice Jughead coming up behind her.

“So,” he said after a few moments.

“That went very well,” she replied.

“Yeah- yes, it did.”

They were quiet for another moment, and then she opened her mouth, “Jug-” when he cut her off with a kiss. This time there was nothing holding them back.

He pulled her closer against him and whispered to her hair, “What do you think about trying us out, to see how we work? Now that we don’t have to worry about them.”

Biting her lip, she glanced up at him. “But what if we don’t work out? How will they feel about that?”

“I have confidence in your ability to act like nothing happened in that case,” he said, “ but more importantly, I have confidence in us.”

And as they kissed, they moved forward into their own little happily ever after, the Hollywood ending without the starring roles.

And really? It was all they needed.


End file.
